While Rieletta was having too much fun trying to push Nat to the path of sexual maturity, Nat never felt more torn in her entire life. She struggled to push and get away from the twisted version of Mary, who was very much unlike the stoic, cold-faced girl she knew from her youth. It was as if her legs were weighed down and she could not kick them up, try as she might.
“M-Mary, I—”
A finger hushed the quivering Nat, as the latter could feel the other’s moist warmth against her own. “You don’t have to hide your feelings from me, Nat. We’ve known each other for long enough that I’m surprised you haven’t acted out.”
“Th-this isn’t right… this feels… wrong,” she seethed before attempting to escape the nightmare.
In the midst of her dreamlike struggling, she was subconsciously manipulating the world around them, wisps of walls and boundaries wafted away as Rieletta struggled to wrest control of the memory. Bit by bit she lost her grip on it as elements from other memories popped up, like the town plaza and the library which she worked most of her life at.
“Gods, aren’t you a feisty one,” the succubus thought to herself, “I guess I might have to go harder if that’s what it takes.” She had experience with people resisting, but with the lack of genitalia or any other mode in which she could directly feel lust, even she had to realize that she had more mental resolve than an old nun. So rather than fight the nature of Nat’s dream world, Rieletta decided to go with it, making the best of the memories she conjured up.
What used to be quiet memories with Mary in the library were twisted to exhibitionist dreams with her adult self, the latter having no shame as Nat saw her visibly thrusting her fingers deep into her clatch. Disgusted by the scene, Nat fled only for her to bump into her at the door, falling on top of her.
“How ironic, now you’re the one on top of me~” the other sultrily quipped.
“G-get away!” Nat stood up and kept running as Rieletta gave chase, appearing as adult Mary wherever Nat could catch a steady glimpse within the world inside her head. Some instances were suggestive, like her dress exposing a bit more skin than necessary, while some were unabashedly lewd, like one with her naked and spreading her legs for Nat to look at. But all these evoked the same reaction in Nat: fear and disgust.
Nat’s breath stilled as her chest felt leadened, and her eyes darted around in a flurry, attempting to see but not settling on a single sight within the dream. She felt the world around her constrict as the numerous instances of Mary closed in, wanting Nat to give in. To give in to the pleasure that she has denied herself for so long. To let go and finally bloom into the woman she was meant to be.
But in a single flash, all the Marys collapsed into insubstantial wisps, and Rieletta was left in the darkness within Nat’s mind.
“This… is new,” the succubus could only tell herself, seeing nothing but the void. Light soon returned in the form of the moon, lighting everything from below. A cold wind blew at her back as the world slowly rematerialized in front of her. Tufts of soft clouds sprouted forth from the void as they made a path towards an old house in the distance. Nat’s house. Unable to stave her curiosity, Rieletta approached it through the path. She only stopped when something stirred from the void and onto the island on which the house stood.
A disheveled cloud woman in nothing but a robe ran forth to Nat’s house, hiding in the darkness. A few guards serving the Sky King came from the void and went past the house, not spotting the lady. Once the coast was clear, she went to the front door and knocked gently, praying to the gods above that someone understanding would answer.
“Please please please please please help me,” she mumbled to herself, still rapping on the door. Rieletta was about to step closer when the door peeked open and a young Nat appeared at the other side.
“Alpa? What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at—”
“Shhh!” The lady hushed little Nat before looking around. “Nat, I’m so sorry to disturb you at this time, but can you please let me hide here?”
“B-but you shouldn’t be here,” little Nat spoke, remembering the generations-long cloudfolk tradition where newly matured cloud women were sent to the Sky King. She was told that the women who were fortunate enough to catch his attention were sent there to serve him in exchange for the town’s safety and blessings, though with this lady Alpa acting all discreet about her presence…
“There she is!” a voice commandeered out of nowhere, before the sound of heavy footsteps thudding followed and grew ever nearer.
“Nat, please let m— mmf!” Before she could even land a step inside the house, a few cloud guards took Alpa away, covering her mouth lest she screamed and made a scene in the middle of the night. The guards must not have noticed Nat or the door being open in their haste in capturing the woman, but as the crew of soldiers boarded on a covered carriage with her, the young cloud girl could only watch aghast as the soldiers trussed her up while in the nude, preventing her from ever escaping again. The fear on Alpa’s face only dug itself deep into Nat’s mind and heart.
“Let’s not keep the Sky King waiting.”
Those were the last words Nat heard before losing sight of Alpa.
The scene faded into darkness. In its place, Rieletta spotted another small island in the distance, showing a more youthful Alpa probably from a time before her maturing. Her hair naturally rested upon her shoulders as the burgeoning cloud woman skipped in the scene almost without a care in the world.
Nat at that time was only walking around, searching for a playmate who wouldn’t tease her for her androgynous appearance. She wandered around until she saw Alpa, the librarian at the time, who was walking home from closing the library for the day.
“Hi Miss Nevathis!” Nat greeted the young lady, “Do you mind if we play for a while? I’m bored and the other kids don’t want to play with me.”
“Oh, please call me Alpa instead,” she spoke to little Nat. “I think that’s a bit too formal, isn’t it?”
“But my mommy told me to greet all adults with respect by calling them miss or mister,” Nat interjected, “though I think she told me some misses are called missus… she told me that because I heard you’re near to becoming a woman!”
“Ah, yes.” Alpa’s sunny face gloomed at the thought.
“Why are you sad, Alpa? I thought becoming mature was a good thing for all the beautiful women in town!”
“It’s just…” her speech faltered a bit, “...I wouldn’t get to see my family and this town as much. This town is so beautiful, and I just can’t bear to know I won’t be seeing everyone here, especially my folks. My dear father— Excalibur bless him— couldn’t bear to see his beautiful daughter going away. He’s already lost enough family as a child…”
“I don’t blame him though. You’re one of the prettiest women in town! Even my mommy wishes I was like you though,” Nat said, albeit a little peeved at her own mother’s remark.
“Aww, thank you, but you’re just as wonderful a kid. I’ve seen you numerous times at the library, and you’ve read so much more than what people your age could!”
“Really?” Nat had never really been complimented about her bookishness before. Her eyes beamed from the young lady’s words.
“I bet you’ll be really smart when you grow up,” she encouraged her. “Maybe you’ll be a great author or professor!”
“But I wanna learn how to do magic,” Nat said, “teaching sounds boring.”
“Then a great magician you’ll be,” Alpa corrected herself, poking Nat in the middle of her face. “You’ll be the best magician there is.”
And thus the scene dims, like a spotlight on the stage, and another one lights up. A new path opened up as it led to the inside of the library, albeit a small portion of it for there only were a few desks and tables around along with numerous bookcases and shelves that towered over the cloudfolk. Rieletta could not read the names on the spines of the books on the shelves nor could she read the text in the book Nat was reading, but as she looked over the cloud child’s shoulder, she stepped away when Alpa came into the scene, bringing a few books with her. For her lithe stature, she had quite a bit of strength to carry several books at once before laying them on the large table which Nat was reading on. She then made space for one section of a nearby bookcase before placing the books back in their rightful places.
Curious, Nat looked over to the librarian’s direction and stood up from her reading. “Alpa, can I help you arrange the books on the shelves?”
“Thank you Nat, that’d be very kind of you, but you seem so engrossed in your book though! I wouldn’t want to break your focus if you need to.” she reassured her.
“No, it’s alright, Miss Alpa,” she said, “I have read that book for the third time already!”
“Oh!” The young librarian was impressed by this little girl’s studiousness. “Are there… any books you’ve not tried reading yet? My apologies if our collection is scant at the moment; much of it came from my family’s own collection, and some have been purchased from our own expenses.”
“I think I have read a lot of books here already, even the newer ones,” she recalled with near-photographic memory. “In fact, I like the language of more recent books more than the older ones. I had to bring out a dictionary for some of them!”
Alpa laughed at her remark. “I have to agree some of the words old authors use are too perplexing, but gods above we need to get you more books then!”
The two of them went around the library fixing and arranging books, the topics of discussion changing around the kinds of books which they were placing back on shelves. After what seemed like a short afternoon of helping out with Alpa’s library duties, she sat back against her upholstered chair and let out a deep sigh. It must have been tiring work for Nat’s body felt leadened with fatigue.
“I must say, that was quite a workout,” Nat said. “Who knew librarian duties are tiring?”
“Yeah…”
“Miss Alpa, do you have anyone else to help you around?”
“No, but I think it’s fine for me to work here all by myself,” she replied. “I don’t have any siblings whatsoever, and our family broke apart back when my grandfather was found guilty for desertion and treason during the Great Sky War… you could imagine no one wanted to be personally related to such a scandal back then.”
Nat could only look at Alpa with a bit of pity, but the librarian smiled. “All of that’s over, at least… My father moved away from the main city once he was of age and settled in a quiet life here in Pegasus Shoe Town.”
She pulled up a record of book borrowers and looked through the names. Nat’s name filled out almost every page. “There’s no one else in this town that was as interested— no, invested— in books as my father was though. It was probably a familial interest since my grandfather was an author himself, but my father surely had this library built as a way to thank the town for accepting him as their own. Almost no one had the time nor the interest to read though, so who else would want to work in a place like this?”
“I would,” Nat interjected, “I really like this place!”
Alpa looked over to her and seemed visibly relieved. “If my father had heard of you when he first built this library, he would have added more books to the collection.”
As the spotlight set on that particular scene, Rieletta finally felt… something was wrong with what she was doing. Not that she ever cared about others that much more than her own sexual needs, but this was starting to feel like a bad idea. Was all this absolutely worth bringing Mary to maturity? All this… winding and turning and forcing this girl to remember the time when the one who thought she was worth anything was being treated as a mere object, all because of some centuries-old sexual tradition in this world?
And here Rieletta was, thinking that cloudfolk were too insubstantial and milquetoast for her lusts.
But there was no denying that Nat did have romantic feelings for Mary, even somewhat slight. And she was sure she made a few cracks against that nigh-impenetrable defense, even though it was somewhat forced. She could push it a little further, and that dam would burst forth and Nat would finally mature as her body intended and realize her feelings for Mary. Then all she could do was let nature take its course and add whatever she desired onto it; she sure as hell made one hell of a look when she invaded Nat’s dream. She just had to tackle this… trauma that was damming her emotions up.
Rieletta would have to make a move at some point. She’s already done enough to start it.